List Revival

Faced with lackluster sales, a multi-channel cataloger offered its catalogue file an incentive to shop. Buyers were offered a coupon for one level, non-buyers were offered a little more of an incentive – they made a huge splash promoting the offer, beginning with a direct mail piece including an access code and expiration date. Recipients went online, entered the code, filled out a couple questions and were emailed the coupon code.

After the coupon was redeemed, shoppers received a series of emails asking for additional preference information, feedback on the purchase channel and product feedback – the typical email included two or three questions.

Overall impact was phenomenal; before the list revival project, their email list was 20% of the catalogue file, they averaged less than 5% open rates and had dismal click-through. Following the project, the cataloger had more than doubled their email list, quadrupled their open rates and had click throughs that were through the roof. The data from the survey series resulted in better segmentation, targeted messaging and a boost in overall sales.

Following the email survey cycle, the cataloguer sent an additional, random survey to 1,000 new customers – findings showed that these new customers felt they were part of the club and received offers that were exactly what they wanted.

Maybe you’re not ready for a total revival, but you could easily begin to survey shoppers and create the necessary dialogue – remember our push for interactive conversations?